


Survival

by xmayxmayx



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2015-12-10
Updated: 2016-01-27
Packaged: 2018-05-05 23:49:08
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 4
Words: 3,139
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5394812
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/xmayxmayx/pseuds/xmayxmayx
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>What if Lily and James survived October 31st 1981? What if, to keep their survival a secret, they chose to go into hiding as muggles? This is the story of the mischief they got up to during Harry's time at Hogwarts and of how the wizarding world came to know that they had survived Voldemort's attack.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Prologue

October thirty-first, 1981 is significant to most people for a few reasons. The first being the one that everyone thinks is most significant. October thirty-first is the day the Dark Lord met his defeat. Lord Voldemort, as he called himself, had been terrorising the country for eleven years. So for this date to be most significant for that reason only is understandable. 

The second reason being that it was the day Harry Potter managed to defeat the Dark Lord. This, in itself, is truly remarkable, because, at the time, Harry Potter was a little over a year old. How he saved the entire wizarding world by defeating Voldemort is a mystery. He was only a baby and he managed to do something others had only dreamed of. 

The third reason that this date is significant is that it is the day that Lily and James Potter sacrificed their lives so that their only son would survive. This reason is often overlooked for the bigger picture, except for those who knew the couple. This reason, to me, is most significant. 

Why would this reason be most significant, you ask? Well, it may have something to do with the fact that Lily and James Potter did not die that day. The rest of the wizarding world, however, did not know that they did. In fact, no one but James and Lily knew that they had survived. 

After all, there was no evidence saying that they did. They found their bodies and buried them. Well, what they thought were their bodies. The body’s that they found were mere illusions, charmed so that they felt real enough to trick those who found them. 

The real Lily and James woke up on the floor of the Forest of Dean the morning after the attack, confused about how they had survived and wondering what had happened with Harry. After wandering the forest for awhile, they disapparated to Godric’s Hollow, only to find their house surrounded by ministry workers and random witches and wizards wanting to know if the rumours were true. 

No one had seen them, which was lucky because they just so happened to bring the bodies out, covered by white sheets, a little while after they arrived at the scene. Lily and James, from their position at the back of the crowd, couldn’t see the bodies properly, but they assumed that they were supposedly them. They quickly left the scene before anyone could see them. 

They later visited Hogsmeade under polyjuice potion to find out what had happened after they had supposedly died. They learnt that Sirius had murdered Peter Pettigrew and twelve muggles and was arrested shortly afterwards. The Potter’s, disguised as an old, wrinkled couple, were astounded that Sirius had murdered anyone. 

They also discovered that Harry had survived and was at an undisclosed location until he was taken to his guardians. No one knew who his guardians would be, but they all came to the conclusion that they would be either a relative or close friend of the family. 

After finding out all they wanted to know, they left Hogsmeade and went into hiding in a small muggle town, disguised as muggles.


	2. Chapter One - Ten Years Later

Dear Harry, 

Happy birthday! I’m sorry I couldn’t be there to celebrate with you on this very special occasion. I will be there with you soon, I promise. We just have to wait a little longer, that’s all. Your daddy is thinking of going to see you off at Platform 9 ¾ on September first. I will be there also. We will be in disguise, of course, as everyone believes we have been dead for the past ten years. You won’t recognise us. You probably won’t even see us, but we’ll be there. 

Congratulations on making it into Hogwarts. We saw all of the owls delivering your letters, only to then have to come back several times because my sister and her husband refuse to allow you to read them. I’m so sorry about that, Harry. I’m sorry it wasn’t us there with you to celebrate your acceptance into the school or to celebrate any of your birthdays or Christmases. It won’t be long now though. Look for us at Platform 9 ¾ and at Hogsmeade Station. We’ll both be there, even though you won’t recognise us. 

I love you, my darling boy and Happy Birthday.

Love, 

Mum.

“Lily! We have to go, now.” James said as he entered the small sitting room, his voice low. Lily folded the letter twice, slipping it into a small envelope and added it to the already over-filled chest full of letters to Harry. She had been writing them for ten years, knowing that it would be years before he would get the chance to read them. She stood up and stretched her limbs, feeling her muscles loosen, before slipping the box into her bag. 

She and James had been living out of two small bags each ever since the night they had ‘died’, laying low and trying not to be found by anyone who would know them. They would camp out in the forests of England, sometimes daring to stay a couple of nights in empty homes. They only dared to stay in the one spot for a couple of nights, in fear that if they stayed too long they would be found by some unsuspecting traveller, camper or wanderer. They used what money they had and what money they could earn to buy new supplies when they needed them, using polyjuice potion to disguise themselves to do their shopping. They hardly dared to go near Diagon Alley and only went when they really needed to, which was only every few months. 

On this occasion, they were living in a small house on the outskirts of a village a couple of hours away from London. The owners had left for a short holiday along the coastline somewhere, trusting the care of their home to their neighbours. Lily and James had put spells up to mask their presence in the home so that no one would know that they were there. 

“Okay, let’s go. Have you taken down the spells?” Lily asked James, following him out of the house and into the backyard. She watched as James pulled out his wand and twirled it a few times to cease the spells they used, placing his wand back into his pocket when he had finished. He smiled at Lily, his grin wide and mischievous. 

“Now I have. Are you ready to go now or do you want to wait a bit longer?” James asked, leading the way out of the small yard and into a small copse of trees in a field just beyond the fence. “We wouldn’t want a repeat of what happened to the last house we stayed at would we?” 

Lily rolled her eyes, grabbing onto his offered hand to help her climb over the fence. “No, James. We wouldn’t want a repeat of that. But just in case you had forgotten something or wanted to stay a bit longer, need I remind you that it was you who caused that to happen?” 

“Me? Nonsense! I did nothing.” James said, ever acting the innocent even though he knew full well that it was him who caused what happened to happen. They came to a halt in the middle of the small copse and faced each other. James still had a mischievous grin across his features. At thirty-one years old, James still looked much like he did at twenty-one, save for the few lines that had appeared around his eyes, which made him look much older. Lily was sure the same could be said for her, but she wasn’t about to admit it to anyone. 

“Where are we going this time, James?” She asked, dropping the previous subject. The story of what had happened in their last stay at someone’s house was something that was best left in the past and was definitely something that neither James nor Lily liked to talk about much. 

“We could go hang around Little Whinging until Harry leaves for Hogwarts.” James suggested, knowing full well that Lily would never agree to do so. 

“No, James. As much as I would love to go hang around and play stalker to our own son, you know we cannot do that. We’ll be seen for sure and you said yourself that it would be very dangerous if we were. We’re supposed to be dead, remember?” Lily protested, just as James thought she would. He held his arm out for her to hold, grinning widely at her flustered appearance. 

“I know. We’ll go check out Derbyshire then. But when it comes time for Harry to catch the train to Hogwarts, we’ll go to London and hide out there. Deal?” James suggested, his smile widening as she took hold of his arm and held on tight. 

“Deal.” Lily said, feeling the familiar tug at her navel that she felt every time they apparated somewhere.


	3. Chapter Two - The Waiting Game

They landed on a rocky surface on top of a cliff. They swayed slightly as they tried to regain their balance, not wanting to fall to their deaths upon the mountainside. When they regained their footing upon the rocks, they looked around them to see where they had landed. They were at the very edge of a cliff. Rocks were strewn all around them, making the locale hazardous to any unaware traveller. Looking over the edge of the cliff, they could see the rocky ground almost twenty feet below. 

“Good choice of destination, James. Were you trying to get us both killed?” Lily said, almost breathless. She pushed away from him, wandering away from the dangerous proximity of the cliff. 

“I wasn’t trying to get us killed, Lily. You know that. That is just where we came through.” James explained, following after her as she made her way across the rocky surface. “I meant for us to come through at a less visible, not to mention less dangerous locale, but we landed here instead. So, where are we going to stay this time? This looks a bit too open for my liking.”

They both looked around the area for any sign of suitable places to set up camp for the however many days and nights they were to stay in the area. After a while of turning this way and that, they peered over the edge of the cliff again and found a small forested area a little ways away from the cliffside. 

“There,” they both said in unison as they pointed to the small area, turning to each other afterward. James held his hand out for her to take as he steered them both away from the edge, looking for a safe place to descend from the cliff. 

They eventually found a rather thin ledge along where they could climb down. James went first to make sure it was safe and when he was certain, he beckoned for Lily to follow behind him. They didn’t speak as they carefully traversed down the cliff, both of them too preoccupied with trying not to fall to their deaths to make an attempt at conversation. It was only when they made it to the base of the cliff, about an hour after beginning their descent that they realised that they could have flown down to their destination with James’s broomstick, which was stored in his backpack. 

“Hey Lils, don’t get mad of anything because I only just realised this, but–” James began, a bit out of breath because of the climb, only to be interrupted by his wife a moment later. 

“You had your broomstick in your bag the entire time, I know. I just remembered that fact myself.” Lily finished, bent over with her hands on her knees in an attempt to catch her breath. The both of them eventually regained their breath, returning to their calm state and drank some water out of their water bottles. “Merlin, how stupid are we? But at least we can cross ‘go rock climbing’ off our bucket list, if we had one, that is.”

James muttered his agreement and then the two of them set off to their desired destination to make camp for the night.


	4. Harry

James and Lily stayed in their forest hideaway for the better part of a month, finding themselves to be perfectly hidden away from prying eyes in the small copse of trees they had come across. In fact, the only narrow encounter they had was with a large family of squirrels who had made the trees their home. By the time they left, it was around the time Harry was due to leave for Hogwarts. They packed up their belongings and apparated away from their campsite and moments later, found themselves in an alleyway not far from King’s Cross station. 

The road up ahead of them was busy with people walking to and fro, forcing James and Lily to retreat further into the shadows of the alleyway in fear of being seen and, worse, recognised. Clinging onto her husband’s hand nervously, Lily looked up at him briefly before shaking her head and stepping away from him. James watched as she rearranged their bags, expanding one of them and placing the other inside of that one so that they wouldn’t be too inconspicuous. When she was finished, she looked back at her husband and smiled, holding her hand out for him to take. “Are you ready to see our son?”

“Beyond ready, Lils. I’ve been waiting for this day since…back then.” James said, grasping her hand and squeezing it gently. He tugged her forward toward the opening of the alleyway, pausing only for a second before plunging into the crowd of people. They stayed close together as they manoeuvred their way through the crowd, clinging onto each other’s hands tightly so that they wouldn’t be separated at any given time. When they made it to the station, they walked in, sighing with relief that at least some of the crowd had died down somewhat so that they could breathe easily again. They stood in the opening of the station, looking around the place, reminiscing about all the times they had come through this building in their school days. “So, should we head to the platform now or should we just hang out here and hope Harry hasn’t already gone through the barrier?”

“We’ll go through and wait for him there. Hopefully no one will recognise us.” Lily replied, nervously looking around them for any familiar faces. Seeing none, she turned back to her husband and then headed over to the barrier to Platform Nine and Three Quarters with James following closely behind. People passed them as they made their way there, sometimes jostling into them slightly and disappearing down the platforms with a barely audible apology from each person. James and Lily thought nothing of it, barely remembering to apologise to those they happened to bump into. A few metres away from the barrier, however, Lily threw out her arm and grabbed James’s arm to stop him from moving forward. “James! It’s Harry!”

Sure enough, when James stopped looking around at everything else at King’s Cross and looked toward the barrier entrance to the platform, he found a small family standing in front of the barrier and just behind them was an eleven-year-old boy who could only be their son, their Harry, due to the fact that, even from behind, he resembled James almost perfectly. James and Lily stared at their son in awe, standing a few metres away, in the middle of the platform and observing as he watched the red-haired family as they surreptitiously disappeared through the barrier to the platform. Muggles shoved and pushed past them as the both of them stood there, unaware of what was going on around them save for what they saw only metres in front of them. Three of the kids in the red-haired family had disappeared through the barrier, leaving only two more kids and their mother left, as well as Harry. 

It was at that moment that the mother turned back to face the three kids behind her and, instead of locking her eyes with her remaining two children and the black-haired boy who seemed to be completely alone, her eyes caught the bright green eyes of a very pretty, dark red-haired woman standing a few metres away from her small group. Her gaze moved to the man standing beside the woman after a moment of looking into the woman’s eyes and she blinked fast, her mouth opening the slightest bit in surprise. When the black-haired boy had approached them barely a moment earlier, she had assumed he was completely alone, but the two people behind her group proved her assumptions to be false. The couple were quite obviously the boy’s parents, but Mrs Weasley could not fathom why he had approached her family if he was with his parents. Turning to the boy, she gave him a small smile. 

“Hullo, dear. I do believe your parents are waiting for you over there. Shouldn’t you be with them on this occasion?” She said, gesturing to the couple, who were staring at the boy as if it were the first time they had ever seen him. The boy, whom she realised that she didn’t as yet know his name, just looked at her confusedly and, did she detect some sadness in his expression? 

“My parents are dead.” He said, frowning. Mrs Weasley blinked and looked to the couple again, noticing that they did look like they could be the boy’s parents. But if the boy’s parents were dead, then why did these people look so much like him, or rather, he look like them? 

“But you’re the splitting image of these people, the man in particular, and your eyes…they’re the same as the woman’s. I just assumed…” Mrs Weasley said, confusion lacing her tone. It was at this moment the boy decided to turn around to inspect these people himself and a second later, a distinctive gasp could be heard, despite the roar of the train station, coming from the boy as he stared at the couple beyond their group. The couple smiled happily and came forward, their gazes unwavering as they stopped in front of him. The woman raised her hands and cupped the kids face, a couple of tears falling from her eyes as she looked upon her son. 

“Harry, my darling boy.” The woman said, her hand smoothing down his messy black hair and touching his cheeks. Harry stared at the woman in confusion, wondering how she knew his name and why she had called him her ‘darling boy’. 

“Wh-who are you?” He asked. She smiled and touched his cheek again. 

“I’m your mother.”


End file.
